I think people get confused: people think 'strong female characters' mean you need to play an action figure.
When I was young, there weren't any teenage girls I could relate to in film. They were all put in boxes: the virginal good girl, the really sarcastic asexual one. I wanted to do something that represented how I felt then.
The movies I used to watch, I remember always being so angry because I felt like I, as a teenage girl, was never truly represented in a film. There were always bits of me that were represented - I'd watch 'Juno' and be like, 'Oh, well part of me is like that, but it's still not the whole thing.'
I had a place to go to university; I was going to study history. I was in New York doing 'Arcadia,' and I suddenly thought, 'It feels a bit weird to go from a New York stage to Manchester University.' It didn't quite feel right.
I feel like all teenagers can relate to that feeling of being, like, so highly strung, and everything is so on the surface, and everything is so extreme.
I want to play a range, from victims to strong people, just as long as it's a well-rounded character. And it's not a woman who's just there for the purpose of the man.
